


Masterpiece Theatre

by Carukia



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: FBI AU, M/M, art theft AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:28:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carukia/pseuds/Carukia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Special Agent Ryan Haywood is supposed to be hunting an art thief. He's not supposed to be getting distracted by the private curator with the British accent and the crooked nose. Shame, really, because that's exactly what he does.</p><p>Obviously, it starts with a painting. It nearly ends there, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masterpiece Theatre

**Author's Note:**

> Named for my favourite Marianas Trench album (of course it is).
> 
> This has been kicking in my head for months, all because Gavin and Ryan teamed up in GTA heists and Gavin said he wanted them to dress up in suits and go buy art together. Whole thing planned, and mostly written.
> 
> I know nothing about art, or the FBI Art Crime team, but god knows I've also been researching it for even longer than I've been writing this. If you DO know something about art and I've buggered something up, please let me know.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it. :)

When Ryan is woken by a sudden and frantic ringing, it takes him a moment to realise he’s not dreaming it. It takes even longer for him to register that the sound is coming from his phone. His eyes crack open, but with the curtains in his hotel room drawn to block out streetlights he can’t see anything anyway. He groans and shifts to find his phone, still ringing from its position on the bedside table, and brings it to his ear without checking the screen. There’s only one person who’d be calling him at this time of night.

“What is it?” he asks, voice raspy from sleep, or what little he’s had of it.

“We need you in New York,” comes the answer through the phone, and if Ryan hadn’t been expecting this at least a little when he’d picked up the phone he’d probably start sobbing. Instead he groans again.

“Really?” he asks. “I mean, _really_ , Geoff?”

“Sorry, bud,” Geoff says, and he actually does sound apologetic.

“Geoff, it’s...” Ryan pulls the phone away from his ear and struggles to make out the shape of the numbers at the top of the screen. “It’s fucking five-thirty, here, I only wrapped up this case two and a half hours ago.” At this point, he estimates, he’s had about three hours total sleep over the last 48, and only one of those has been tonight. His whole body is aching and his throat is scratchy, and the last thing he wants to do is immediately put his mind to another case.

“I know,” Geoff tells him, but it would be eight-thirty in Philly, Ryan thinks, so Geoff has had a full night’s sleep and has only been at work thirty minutes. “It’s important.”

Ryan runs a hand down his face and sighs. “What about Jack and Jeremy? Can’t they handle it?”

“They can,” Geoff concedes, and Ryan is about to furiously hang up when Geoff continues, “But I thought you’d want this one. It’s Saint Nick.”

It’s like an electric shock. Ryan sits bolt upright. “What?” He reaches out to flick on the table lamp.

Geoff knows he’s caught his attention thoroughly, now. “Yep! Looks like he’s hit some mansion in Old Westbury, thought you might be the agent to take a look.” Ryan is already scrabbling his way out of bed. He jams his phone under his ear against his shoulder while he pulls on his jeans.

“What have you got on it so far? Is there a team out there already? Who called it in? How much is missing?”

Geoff chuckles. “Slow down, Ryan, Jesus. Look, we’ve got a team holding the place down, they’re not going to do anything until you arrive. We’ve got you a plane at seven, boarding pass in your email, taxi en route, about fifteen minutes or so. I’ll have someone pick you up at JFK and debrief you on the drive.”

Ryan shoves his gear into his suitcase. “Email me everything you have,” he demands. “I’ll review on the flight.”

Geoff snorts. “Are you kidding? You’re flying coach, asshole, I’m not sending you dick.” Ryan huffs, but he gets it – the WiFi isn’t secure and he guarantees whoever sits next to him is going to read the contents when they think he’s not looking. “Use the flight to sleep some more.”

“Right,” Ryan agrees zipping his case and shoving his ID into his pocket. “What’s the name of the driver at JFK?”

“You’ll know him when you see him,” Geoff assures him, and Ryan can hear the massive grin in his voice. He rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. Geoff knows what he’s doing. “Get going, cab will arrive soon. Keep me updated after you do the thing at the scene.”

“Will do, boss,” Ryan answers, and hangs up. There’s a last second check of the room to make sure he hasn’t missed anything – he hasn’t, of course, because the room is fairly small and Ryan is very neat – and then he’s hurrying down to the front desk so he doesn’t miss his ride. The concierge is reading a novel and sipping coffee when he arrives, and looks surprised to see him.

“Bit of an emergency?” she asks as he passes over his credit card. “You only got in a few hours ago, didn’t you?” Ryan hums and nods.

“There’s always a bank open somewhere in the world. No damn respect for those of us sleeping,” he grumbles, slipping easily into the cover he’d been running in LA. She laughs politely.

“I bet,” she answers, and finishes processing the check out. “Thank you for staying with us, I hope you enjoy your day.” Ryan nods again and smiles, and hurries out. The cab arrives a few minutes later – enough time for Ryan to find his boarding pass in his email – and makes good time to the airport.

The flight leaves twenty minutes late, and Ryan sleeps uncomfortably between the window and a woman who starts crying three minutes into her in-flight movie.

 

\--- --- ---

 

Saint Nick was the first big case Ryan was given.

For years, Geoff had kept him on smaller cases, little things that wouldn’t garner too much bad reputation for the FBI if they hadn’t caught the thief or the smuggler or the forger. It meant that they also wouldn’t get much media attention when Ryan _had_ caught them them, but the benefit of that was that it had given Ryan time to develop a long list of aliases to use and a longer list of contacts to give him credibility, away from the prying eyes of major players in the art world’s black market.

Ryan slowly ingratiated himself with people involved in the major auction houses, made friends with people in INTERPOL, and spent two weeks in Europe for a conference where he met other agents and law enforcement officers, and where he had learned about tools and techniques for solving art crime and capturing criminals he hadn’t even imagined.

It’s one of those people he met at the conference who calls him a few years later. Kovic’s name flashed on Ryan’s screen one rainy afternoon, and Ryan hadn’t hesitated. “Adam, how can I help?”

And Kovic had told him about this weird case in LA that he and his team – a very small component of the LAPD – just didn’t have the resources for. Ryan had taken all the details, written it up, and passed it to Geoff, expecting that to be the end of it for him. The case had been higher-profile than he’d been accustomed to – a watercolour piece on vellum by Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh. Her work is considered a defining feature of the ‘Glasgow Style’, Kovic had told him, and the piece – _The Three Perfumes_ – had been taken from a wealthy household in Arcadia, and all that had been left in its place was a lump of coal.

Geoff had flicked through the files and then handed it back to him. “Get on it, then,” he had said, and Ryan had stared.

“Uh.”

“Your contact, your case,” Geoff had added kindly. “You’re ready for it.”

It had very quickly become a massive thorn in Ryan’s side. _The Three Perfumes_ hadn’t been recovered – Ryan hadn’t found any physical evidence, the owners couldn’t think of a single person who might have done it, and all of Ryan’s usual suspects like maids and maintenance crew and babysitters in the house turned out to be clean. And so had begun a string of unsolved thefts that Ryan had yet to catch a break on.

They all went the same way – a wealthy home, typically large enough that a missing item didn’t get noticed for at least several days afterwards, was thieved of one or two significant pieces which were replaced by coal. And Ryan couldn’t find a damn thing to connect them otherwise.

Now, Ryan thinks, is probably the best time for this to happen. Having just wrapped up his last case, he can focus on Saint Nick. He has the time, he has the resources, and he’s going to finish this.

 

\--- --- ---

 

By the time the flight lands at JFK, it’s past four in the afternoon. Ryan is glad for the extra five or so hours sleep, but it’s fogged his head a bit and all he wants is a cup of coffee and some eggs. He gets the coffee at least, just after he’s collected his suitcase, and heads to the exit to wait for his driver.

It doesn’t take long. “Ey, Ryan!” Ryan turns to the voice, and stops to grin the moment he catches who’s turned up for him.

“Ray,” Ryan laughs, shaking his head and pulling his case behind him to get close enough to shake Ray’s hand warmly. “How’d you get roped into this?”

Ray snorts. “You kidding? This is _my_ case, I called _you guys_ into it. Chick didn’t want anyone to know her place had been targeted, she had some serious problems with me wanting to get you feds involved.” Ryan laughs at that – ‘you feds’ – and passes his suitcase to Ray when he reaches out to put it in the trunk of his car. It’s a little nicer than the cars Ray had been driving while he’d still been with the FBI. “Come on,” Ray adds. “File’s on the front seat.”

Ray and Ryan had run as partners occasionally at the time Ryan had first been given the Saint Nick case. He’d helped investigate some parts when in downtime on his own cases, so Ray knew a little more about it than most of the other agents based in Philadelphia. Ray had shown promise, a lot of promise, until a smuggling bust had gone wrong early in Ray’s art crime career. Stuck on a ship in Miami trying to make a deal to catch a smuggler, an overzealous agent had lavished too much attention on the wrong suspect, drawn too much suspicion, and the whole operation had gone balls up and descended into a shootout. Ray had lived, but his knee had been shattered and that had been the end of that. Very early retirement.

Ryan is glad Ray is involved in this, though, despite watching him walk to the car with a gait stiff around his reconstructed knee. Ray is still young, and there had been no way he’d give up recovering stolen art. With the pension he’d been given from the FBI upon his forced retirement, Ray had started up a private investigation and consulting business, and had been running that in New York ever since. Ryan guesses this business is why he’d been contacted by the owner about the case.

Ryan flips through the files on the drive, but there’s so much content and his eyes aren’t focusing properly. “Just run this by me?” he asks.

“Seriously?”

“I just got off a plane, Ray!”

“Fine, fine. Got the call at eight this morning, the owner was woken by housekeeping who had noticed a missing painting at six thirty. I called Geoff at eight-fifteen.” Ryan nods at him to continue, but Ray is checking for traffic over his shoulder and doesn’t catch it. “Saint Nick took a Manet.”

Ryan inhales the coffee he’d just started sipping and collapses into a coughing fit. Ray laughs and reaches out to pat him firmly on the back. “A _what_?”

“Yup, a Manet,” Ray confirms. “I mean, not like a super fancy one or anything, but it has his signature on it so it counts.”

“Fuck.” Ryan’s head is whirling. Saint Nick hasn’t ever shied away from pieces that are big in the art world, but he’s never gone for something by someone with a name recognised by the general public. “What did he take?”

Ray pulls the car up to a massive iron gate outside a huge mansion and presses the buzzer. The gates slowly creep open and he drives forward. “Little thing, five by eight-point-five inches, oil on panel. _Cows at the Pasture_ , it’s called. There’s a picture in the file.” Ryan pulls it out as Ray parks beside a group of dark cars. Fellow agents, Ryan assumes, part of the team Geoff has holding the place down.

The painting isn’t particularly stunning, in Ryan’s opinion. It’s kind of plain, nothing like Manet’s more famous portraits or canal scenes, but Ryan hadn’t gotten into solving art crime just for the pieces he liked. He follows Ray out of the car and up to the mansion’s door. Ray clearly has permission to do as he needs, because he doesn’t bother with knocking. “So, we haven’t touched anything, but we’ve taken a bunch of photos. Position of the coal, where the painting was, location of other objects in the room,” Ray continues. “I know you like a list of employees, and a detailed description of the owner’s recent activities, so I got those, too.”

“Thanks, Ray.” He means it, wholeheartedly. “Do you have the provenance documents?” Ryan asks as they climb a spiral staircase.

“I do. Checks out. She bought the painting three years ago.” And here, they walk up to the scene, a huge lounge. Agents mill about outside, but Ryan steps right in to look around. There’s a fireplace in the centre, not recently used, rugs and sofas placed around it. The missing Manet clearly hung above – the coal now rests on the mantle.

“Nothing else was stolen?” Ryan asks, glancing around. There are other pieces dotting the walls, and a few carvings on shelves. He knows the answer before he asks it, but he’s long since learned that he cannot make assumptions about a case.

“Nope. Everything else in the house is accounted for.” Ryan hums, and slowly moves around the room.

“House is alarmed?”

“Yep,” Ray confirms. “It went down for fifteen minutes at about two this morning. So I’d guess that’s when the painting was taken.” Ryan nods. A place like this with a couple of floors and easily scaled stone walls, odds are Saint Nick came in through a higher window. Ryan looks around for a little while longer before turning towards the agents watching from the doorway.

“Alright, swab everything. Collect every hair, every print. I need a team to find the entry point. Check windows, fireplaces, any door that can be jimmied open.” The agents move in and Ryan turns to Ray again. “Let’s have another chat to the owner, and then I’ll grab all the files from you and head back to Philly.”

Ray shrugs. “Sounds good.”

Sometimes, Ryan has found, owners of stolen art are the criminals themselves. They sell the painting, typically lesser-known pieces, and claim insurance from it being ‘stolen’. Ryan has seen this enough to notice the signs, but it’s obvious immediately that the owner of _Cows at the Pasture_ is not behind it. She’s rude and dismissive, entitled and demanding, but innocent.

Ryan’s instincts prove right and the team finds the third-floor window that looks like it’s been broken into. They collect more photos, more hairs and prints where they find them, until Ryan is satisfied and instructs them to send the files through to the team in Philadelphia so Ryan can access them later.

“So, you should keep me updated on this,” Ray says when he pulls up to the airport again a few hours later. “You know, if Geoff lets you do that, keeping it quiet from the Bureau and all.”

Ryan grins. “I can claim you as a consultant or something, sure.”

“That’s all I ever ask,” Ray nods slowly, and then they shake hands and Ryan heads inside. A flash of his FBI ID gets him on the very next plane to Philadelphia, and by the time he finally gets home it’s past eleven. He doesn’t bother calling Geoff to update him – Geoff will get all the information when they show up at the office the next day – he just shudders, drops his clothes to the floor, and crumbles into bed.

 

\--- --- ---

 

“Hey,” Geoff murmurs, and nudges Ryan’s shoulder with his fist. Ryan glances up from where his forehead is resting in his hand as he stares as the pages on his desk. Most of the lights in the office have been turned off, Ryan suddenly notices, and everyone else has gone home for the night. He sits back in his seat and sighs. “Not going well?”

It’s not. “No,” Ryan admits. He’s been looking at these employee lists for days. The lists go back months, and Ryan has been cross-referencing with the same lists from previous art theft victims targeted by Saint Nick, and interviewing those he can get in contact with. He’s coming up blank. “I’ve got nothing.”

Geoff hums. “You want some more time? I’ve got new cases if you need a break.” Ryan sighs again.

“Yeah,” he concedes. “Yeah, alright. Give me something in the morning, I’ll take a look at it.”

“Yep,” Geoff agrees, and pats him on the shoulder once more. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow. Try and get some sleep.” Ryan grunts and picks up the papers he’s looking at, but he barely manages to read a few lines before tossing them back down again.

Ryan runs his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face, and turns instead to the file detailing the owner’s recent activities. He only half reads it – it’s too late at night, he can hear Geoff packing up his bag in his little alcove across the room and Ryan has been looking forward to his bed all day – but for the first time in a while something on the page jumps out at him.

 _Attended auction at Christie’s – three weeks ago_.

That’s new, Ryan thinks, sort of. Other victims had attended auctions, of course they had, but it hadn’t ever come up in a list of their most recent activities. It might be nothing, but someone involved in the auction might remember the owner the Manet, or someone they spoke to, or something that was said that might help.

“Geoff?” he calls out. Geoff pokes his head up. “Cancel that new case, I might have something here.”

“Oh?” Geoff turns his desk light off, slings his bag over his shoulder, and shuffles over. “What is it?”

“Auction. I have a few contacts at Christie’s I can call.”

Geoff sighs dramatically. “Guess this _really_ cool smuggling ring is going to have to go to Jack, then...?” Ryan just grins at him, and Geoff throws his hands up. “Whatever, asshole. Get out of here, go home and sleep and deal with it tomorrow.” Ryan hesitates, and Geoff responds immediately by gently shoving him in his chair. “Come on, let’s go.” Smiling, Ryan obeys. He stacks the files away and locks them in his drawer, packs his bag, and follows Geoff out. He can’t call his contacts this late, anyway.

It takes him two hours to even get a hold of someone at Christie’s the next morning. His phone is jammed between his ear and his shoulder while he scrawls notes and flips through his files. “Hey, Ryan,” Meg answers, and she sounds breathless. In the background, Ryan can hear a bunch of yelling, and it’s clear Meg is moving around a lot. “I don’t have a lot of time, what’s up?”

“Well, I was going to ask you some questions I have about a case, but sounds like you’re busy,” Ryan answers. He tries not to sigh in frustration. For as long as Ryan has known her, Meg has spent her life on the go, doing something for the auction house – moving items, hiring new staff, setting up exhibitions or travelling and sourcing new sellers – but after hours of just trying to find _someone_ to help, he’s starting to lose the steam he’d gotten from finding this possible lead source.

“Ah, I am, yeah. But what in particular did you need?”

Ryan jumps at the chance. “Investigating a theft, wanted to ask a bunch of your staff if they remember her, can think of anyone she spoke to or was with, that kind of thing.”

Meg laughs. “Good luck. No way are they going to remember a single person that well.”

“Well, shit.”

Ryan hears a door close and suddenly all the other voices stop. He guesses Meg’s gone into her office. “Yep. But look, we have an exhibition and charity auction on Sunday, I can get you a pass and you can come in, speak to people just in case, check out the security footage or whatever?”

“That would be delightful, thank you,” Ryan says, breathing out in relief.

“I’ll mail you the pass,” Meg answers. “Look, I have to go, I’ll see you Sunday.”

Ryan wishes her well, hangs up, and immediately packs his things. He slings his bag over his shoulder and walks past Geoff’s alcove on the way out. “Going to see the backstoppers,” he says as he goes past.

“Make sure to fill out the paperwork for it,” Geoff replies, eyes firmly focused on his computer while he taps away. Ryan doesn’t answer, but he does catch Geoff’s head shooting up at the silence as he makes it to the elevator. “Hey! Make sure to fill out your damn paperwork, asshole!” The elevator doors start to close. “Ryan. _Ryan_!” Ryan isn’t convinced he’s _ever_ completely filled out backstop paperwork. Used to be he didn’t see the point, but now it’s just because it makes Geoff so mad.

The Philadelphia branch of the backstop team is essentially around the corner, certainly close enough for Ryan to walk. The DC branch is massive, supplying essentially the entire FBI with all the documents and evidence they need to protect the false identity of its agents. The Philadelphia group works only for the art crime division, and Ryan likes that. He can almost guarantee that when he goes in, they’ll be able to drop their side projects and help him pretty much immediately.

Ryan has a bit of a reputation amongst the backstoppers, he can admit that. He likes to be in control of his identity, he likes to tell them which items he wants to suit his identity and which ones to avoid, which organisations and businesses they can contact for official-looking documents and which to not even ask at risk of him being caught. So when he arrives, it’s no surprise that the front desk agent raises his eyebrow, frowns, and points inwards without so much as a greeting.

Ryan walks through the corridor, and all but one of the office doors are closed. He pokes his head into Matt’s room, and waves when Matt glances up at him. Matt’s on the phone, and Ryan sees him roll his eyes and frown. “Look,” Matt says down the line, “I gotta go, got one of the locals in,” and hangs up. “Really, Ryan? Couldn’t have called ahead?” Ryan shrugs, and Matt sighs. “What do you need?”

It’s not a difficult decision. Ryan needs an identity he’ll be able to maintain over months if he needs to, something that gives him a legitimate reason to be at exhibitions and auctions, to travel around the country or around the world to follow any new leads should he find any. “Ryan Walker,” he tells Matt. “Antiques consultant.” Matt nods and starts taking notes. “I’m going to need the usual stuff, license and passport, that sort of thing. Stick with a Philly base. Articles, maybe a small-time award or something, a solid CV but nothing too fancy, register an office and set an agent up as a desk manager. Business cards, a receipt or two with my cover name on it. You know the rest.”

“Yep, yep. When do you need it by?”

“Sunday.”

Matt stares up at him, eyes wide and jaw dropped. “ _Sunday_?” Ryan nods. “Really? _Really_?” Ryan doesn’t answer again, just stands and waits, because inevitably Matt will always give in. He’ll complain the whole time – Ryan expects to receive half-hourly email updates for the next few days while Matt organises a team and works furiously – but he’ll get it done. “Fine. Get out of here. I’ll bring it all over.”

Ryan grins. “Aw, thanks, Matt,” he says, waves, and gets out of there. He has to buy a suit.

 

\--- --- ---

 

Ryan flies back to New York on Sunday and turns up at the auction house in the afternoon, hoping to catch Meg before she gets too far into exhibitor mode. When he seeks her out she’s smiling dangerously at another employee and reprimanding him for something. Ryan waits patiently until she’s done, but when she turns to him she looks apologetic. “Ryan, I’m sorry, I’m run off my feet.”

He raises his hands to calm her. “It’s fine,” he assures her, “it’s fine. Another day.”

Meg shakes her head and snaps the leather notebook she’s carrying closed. “No, no, stay for the event, have fun, we can catch up afterwards and I’ll make sure the staff and tapes are available to you. How’s that sound?”

Ryan gives a thumbs up. “Great!” he says, and she grins in return.

It’s a nice enough exhibition, Ryan thinks as he walks slowly around the gallery opened and prepared for the event.  The curators have organised a history of Russian art from the early period Russian icons, through neoclassicism, romanticism and realism, and further into Russian avant-garde and Soviet art, and Ryan follows this creative timeline along the gallery walls. Not a great deal of it is particularly to his tastes, but he finds he’s most taken with the realists – the forests, the rivers, the clearings and the oceans all make Ryan relaxed, and he enjoys that.

What he doesn’t enjoy so much is avant-garde. It’s too busy, he thinks, too abstract for his liking. He can see where the paintings are supposed to flow – in shapes, colours, themes – but he’s not fond of them at all. He pauses in front of a piece labelled as _Red Square (Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions)_ and is considering all of this when someone steps up beside him.

“Wonderful, don’t you think?” the man beside him asks, accent incredibly British, and Ryan glances at him. He catches the gold-brown hair carefully styled to look unkempt, the well-groomed short beard, and blue-green eyes staring right up at that painting. “It’s my favourite piece here.”

Ryan considers it some more, and looks back. “Hm. I don’t like it,” he admits. And then, before he can stop himself, “It’s a red square in a white square.” The man beside him stiffens, fingers tightening slightly around the wine glass he’s holding, and his eyes snap to Ryan’s, confused and angry and flashing, too-big and crooked nose twitching. Ryan’s mouth dries immediately, stomach flipping, and his breath catches. The man stares at him for a second, before looking back to the painting.

“ _Red Square_ is by Kazimir Malevich,” the man tells Ryan. His voice is soft where his stance is not. “He painted it in 1915, in the midst of the first world war, in the build up to the 1917 Russian Revolution. In the years leading up to this revolution, the Russian government had started printing money to fund their war efforts, so by 1917 inflation had raised prices to four times those of 1914. Food suddenly became a scarcity, because even though the harvest itself was unchanged, peasants were suffering from increased product prices without enjoying increased profits from their own products, since these profits were taken by middlemen.”

Ryan is enthralled. The man’s eyes brighten as he talks, clearly incredibly passionate. “So the peasants took to subsistence farming and hoarded their product. At a time when Russia was already on-edge, the peasantry became so, _so_ important.” Here, he reaches in and taps at the sign stuck to the wall beside the painting. _Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions_. “But, why red? Malevich painted several squares between 1915 and about 1932, and most of these were black. He’s very famous for it.”

Ryan doesn’t speak, but he could guess. The man beside him continues. “Russia’s turmoil in the decades up to this point had prompted the creation of several new political parties. Take the Socialist Revolutionary Party which formed in 1902 before the Revolution of 1905, which eventually became part of the Russian Provisional Government in 1917. Or, the Bolshevik Party, which took over after the October Uprising. These parties, and many similar ones, were represented by the colour red. In propaganda, the imagery for these parties included waving around giant red flags, as though to scream that they supported socialist ideals, wanting everyone to be able to share in the products of all of their labours. Similarly, other artwork of the time used these symbols, the red spearing itself into the white. So imagine, as a peasant who was losing their money and their product, how incredible that would be, and so what a wonderful thing the colour red would come to represent.”

Here, the man finally turns again to fix Ryan with a firm stare. “So, yes, it _could_ just be a red square in a white square. _Or,_ it could be a representation of the values and ideals and struggles of a country in the midst of war, barely a decade past one revolution and only two years ahead of another.” He quirks an eyebrow. “Excuse me,” he finishes, turns, and starts walking away.

The absolute last thing Ryan wants is for this guy to leave. Ryan isn’t used to being completely slammed with knowledge like that, and to be honest, he loves it. He wants to take this guy to a coffee shop and sit him down, and listen to him talk about art with his flashing eyes and his crooked nose and his British accent for hours. He wants to feel that first breathlessness and first stomach jitters over and over again. And Ryan isn’t ashamed to think that he also wants to gently peel off this man’s dark grey suit and see if he can’t make him feel those exact same feelings right back.

“Wait,” Ryan calls out to him before he can get too far away, before he’s lost for good. The man stops and half turns, eyebrow raised. “You didn’t say whether it has anything to do with Moscow’s Red Square,” and here Ryan gestures to the red of the painting, “with the historic markets and parades and speeches. And you also didn’t discuss whether or not it references Lobnoye Mesto, the platform where executions were held. It was rebuilt in white stone in 1786,” and here Ryan gestures to the white, and raises an eyebrow of his own.

Slowly, the other man’s face tints very slightly pink, and his lips have parted in surprise. He blinks once, and swallows, and then his lips curl upwards. “No, I didn’t say that. But I also wouldn’t necessarily _not_ say that, either.”

Ryan grins. “I said I don’t _like_ it, not that I don’t _understand_ it.”

Amazingly, the man laughs, teeth flashing and eyes crinkling in clear humour. He walks straight back over, transfers his wine to his left hand, and holds his right hand out. “Gavin,” he says. Ryan takes his hand and shakes it warmly.

“Ryan.”

Gavin smiles, eyes bright. “Not a fan of Russian avant-garde, then?” he asks. Ryan chuckles, and slowly – _very_ slowly – lets his hand slip free. He immediately regrets it.

“Not particularly, no. I’m more a fan of the classics.”

Gavin looks as though he’s about to reply, except he’s cut off by the sound of a bell and the PA system coming online. Meg’s voice fills the room. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the auction room is now open. Our charity auction will begin in ten minutes.” Gavin glances at his watch in surprise, and then back to Ryan. He hesitates.

“Sorry, I... I’m actually here on business, sourcing pieces for a client.” He gestures in the direction of the auction room where the rest of the guests have begun to move to, and smiles a little, cheeks pink. “Would you like to join me?”

 _More than anything_ , Ryan thinks, and only catches himself at the last moment. He nervously runs his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. “I would love to, but I’m unfortunately on the job myself,” he answers. “Antiques consultant. I’ll be expected in the back rooms, I’m afraid.” Gavin looks truly disappointed at that, though he nods. “But, uh, how long are you in the country for?” he asks. He can’t give Gavin his real name, his real job, but he can probably take him on a real date.

Gavin’s lips twitch into a smile. “A few weeks, at least. I’m on standby for my client. He decides where he’d like to pay me to attend, and I go and find him art. I think I’ll be around awhile.”

“Then,” Ryan continues, reaching into his jacket breast pocket and pulling out a business card, “take this. Let me know if you get to attend another auction or exhibition, perhaps we’ll both be in the area?”

Gavin’s pink blush deepens a touch, and he nods, accepting the card and slipping it into his pocket. He looks about to turn and go again, then decides better of it and pulls out a pen from his own jacket. He takes Ryan’s hand and scribbles some numbers onto his palm, and an email address below it. “You should call me,” Gavin blurts. “Or, email, or whatever. You should definitely do one of those things.” And then he steps back and clears his throat. “Okay, well, good, enjoy the rest of your evening. Ryan.”

“Gavin,” Ryan nods, grinning with his heart pounding and his stomach flipping while he watches Gavin hurry away.

And later, after the auction has wrapped up and the guests have cleared and Meg has found him, when Ryan has to interview staff and start picking through security footage, he finds it’s incredibly difficult to focus on the job rather than thoughts of Gavin and the number on his palm.


End file.
